moonmilk » photoblog

instrument-a-day 1: westminster doorbell

ranjit — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 03:41:26 +0000

Day 1: the Westminster Doorbell, made of a couple of steel rods suspended over a guitar pickup. I’m learning how to get more overtones out of it, but I haven’t really figured it out yet.

the Music Box Orchestra, New Orleans

ranjit — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 21:51:57 +0000

Here’s a teaser video of the New Orleans Airlift’s Music Box Orchestra, a big crazy sound art/architecture project I helped out with. My contribution was the squeaky moving floor, which you can see providing the bass line as the performance starts.

The Music Box – Oct 22 from TungstenMonkey on Vimeo.

the voice extruder

ranjit — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 01:11:13 +0000

the voice extruder, originally uploaded by ranjit.

Video: Adam Mayer helps test an almost-finished version of my project for Artbots Gent: the Voice Extruder makes a shape from your voice, and then prints it out for you on a 3d printer.

JelTone update

ranjit — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 02:48:10 +0000

All the plans, instructions, and source code for the Resistor JelTone are now available on thingiverse!

busy summer!

ranjit — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 03:05:44 +0000

Last month I went to the Lightning Field, brought Sketching Device #1 to the Peabody Essex Museum, and spoke at the Sketching in Hardware conference. Now I really have to get to work.

In September, I’ll be making a wave-powered sound sculpture for the Dumbo Arts Festival (September 23-25). Also showing a bunch of big prints from my produce scan series in the show “(Un)Still Life” at the lobby gallery at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Branch (September-December). And going to New Orleans to install a sound sculpture in Swoon’s musical house project (opening October 15th). Hopefully I’ll have time for Maker Faire in there somewhere (September 17-18). And I’ll be sending good vibes (and probably laser whistles) to the Festival of Music for People and Thingamajigs in the Bay Area (September 22-25). Then in October, I’ll be going to the Netherlands to speak at VU University Amsterdam and to show a piece at Artbots Gent (October 7-9), and in December, I’ll have a couple of pieces and maybe an installation in Phyllis Chen’s Uncaged Toy Piano Festival in NYC.

So now I’d better get some rest.

8-bit violin played by real fiddlers!

ranjit — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 16:43:41 +0000

These guys at the Thingamajigs DIY Instruments Tailgate Party really know how to operate a pointy rectangular fiddle!

Thanks, CTP, for the videos.

8-bit violin plans

ranjit — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 23:27:27 +0000

8-bit violin plans, originally uploaded by ranjit.

Plans and instructions for the 8-bit violin are now on thingiverse!
thingiverse.com/thing:6912

instrument-a-day 28: sproing!

ranjit — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 04:04:43 +0000

sproing!!!

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 27: bent buddha box beat

ranjit — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 21:44:54 +0000

a little oscillator that triggers the box to switch to another chant over and over again.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 26: bent buddha box

ranjit — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 20:57:05 +0000

Du Yun brought me this box from Shanghai, and I opened it up for a minor lobotomy.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 25: water bowl

ranjit — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 02:29:16 +0000

I always liked the sounds I got while washing big steel bowls.

Trivia: the musical instrument called the Waterphone does contain water, but is named for its inventor, Richard Waters.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 24: handmade electronic noise

ranjit — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 05:34:45 +0000

squeaky exercises from the pages of the book "Handmade Electronic Music" by Nic Collins.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 23: mechanical synthesizer

ranjit — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:44:33 +0000

This trick was used as far back as the 19th century to synthesize musical tones. The gears have 24, 27, 30, 32, 36, 40, 45, and 48 teeth, so the notes are all related by simple fractions – that makes this a just intonation scale rather than equal temperament.

There's plans and instructions on thingiverse: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6662

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 22: baseball chimes

ranjit — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:26:47 +0000

In honor of the start of spring training and in the hope that spring weather will be here soon.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 20 & 21: 8-bit violin

ranjit — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 06:33:06 +0000

A working violin made from maple and oak craft wood. The design is all 90 degree angles except the fingerboard. The tuning pegs are literally square pegs in round holes.

The thing's tuned two half-steps low until it gets used to the tension.

I have never played a violin, so many thanks to Bre Pettis who dusted off his 15-years-neglected fiddling skills to test-drive this violin! (Hey NYC violinists! Want to help test & demo this thing? Contact me.)

I hope to get all the designs uploaded to thingiverse soon – keep an eye on moonmilk.com if you're interested.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 19: brass whistle

ranjit — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 05:34:27 +0000

Yeah, I like whistles. This one's made from a brass tube and a wooden dowel from a craft store. The fipple was cut with a hacksaw, and the finger holes drilled with a drill press.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 18: garbage drainpipe

ranjit — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 05:41:38 +0000

Someone left a big chunk of gutter drain pipe in the garbage, and a sturdy wooden handle, just for me.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 17: wooden strings & rattles

ranjit — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 05:22:13 +0000

I lasercut some strips of poplar for another project, and found that the waste wood could be plucked like guitar strings. The strips make pretty good rattles too.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 16: light sensor

ranjit — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:50:35 +0000

It's just a photodiode, a 9-volt battery, and a little amplifier, but it makes the vibrations in artificial light audible. A lot of what you hear is derived from 60Hz AC power, but electronic displays have tones of their own.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 15: piano scanner

ranjit — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 21:24:44 +0000

Scanning a handheld magnetic pickup back and forth over the piano strings makes a pretty neat sound. I may try attaching a rail on which the pickup can slide back and forth.

The pickup is plugged into an ordinary guitar amp.

Plug: Fun with Sensors workshop this Saturday at NYC Resistor!

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 14: corn music

ranjit — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 00:29:22 +0000

I’ve always thought the patterns on corncobs looked like player piano rolls. So I wrote a program that watches a slowly-turning corncob. Whenever a particularly dark kernel crosses the centerline of the image, it plays a note corresponding to the height.

You can download the Processing code from moonmilk.com/11/02/cornscan.txt.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 13: garbage garbage can lid

ranjit — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 23:10:35 +0000

On the way to SHARE last night, I
packed a contact microphone and drumsticks but no instrument, telling
myself I’d find something in the garbage on the way there. What I
found was this nice metal garbage can lid.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

laser whistles

ranjit — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 03:47:59 +0000

laser whistles, originally uploaded by ranjit.

These are some of the whistles made by participants in this afternoon’s laser whistle workshop at NYC Resistor.

There’s still two workshops left in the noisy noise series!

instrument-a-day 12: failed box xylophone

ranjit — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 03:06:51 +0000

It doesn’t really work. I put it into the scrap wood bin.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 11: ice smash!

ranjit — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 03:59:30 +0000

Found a beautiful cracked frozen puddle in the park and flung some ice around.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 10: fish whistle

ranjit — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 04:36:11 +0000

Practice for Saturday’s laser whistle workshop. It’s cut from 1/4″ poplar. I won’t post the cutting plan until I figure out why only one of its two whistles is hooting and fix the problem!

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 9: MIDI OUT

ranjit — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:02:23 +0000

The simplest possible midi instrument: just jam the speaker cable into the midi out connector.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 8: trash piano replacement hammers

ranjit — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 05:54:03 +0000

NYCResistor rescued a battered old upright piano that was destined for
the dumpster. There were 6 missing hammers right in the middle, so I
made a quick and dirty set of replacements. Surprisingly, they have a
sound that’s pretty close to the original hammers.

The hammers are lasercut from 1/4" poplar, glued together in
pairs to be 1/2" thick and then sanded down to 0.4" to match
the original hammers. The extended slot in the bottom allows me to
glue the hammer onto the old broken shafts instead of replacing them,
and to tilt them to the right to hit the strings at the right angle.
The felt is some wool stuff from a craft drawer. Real hammer heads
are mostly felt, but I made these ones mostly wood because it was
easier.

Plans and instructions at www.thingiverse.com/thing:6242

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 7: makerbot

ranjit — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 05:33:16 +0000

I’ve always loved the sounds made by makerbots as they print out
little plastic gewgaws. Tonight I miked up Jeff’s custom crystal
Thing-o-matic as it printed out a shot glass. Acoustic mic is panned
left, and contact mic is panned right.

I know people have programmed their makerbots to play music, but I
like best the sounds they naturally make when they make objects.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 6: humidifier

ranjit — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 06:17:36 +0000

This humidifier runs next to my bed all night in the winter.
Sometimes its groans and whirs are so interesting that they keep me
awake and I have to turn it off. It plays little cadences, drones,
and repeating beats that constantly change. Or I’m just hallucinating
in my half-asleep state.

I’ve been meaning to record it for months. It didn’t do anything
particularly exciting during these 45 seconds, but you can hear it
subtly change even in that time.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 5: roundrect ocarina

ranjit — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 01:20:32 +0000

An improvised ocarina design, laser-cut and assembled from
cross-sections. It’s much less ergonomic but easier to assemble than
last year’s laser ocarina.

Plans and instructions are on thingiverse: www.thingiverse.com/thing:6182

p.s. I’m teaching a laser whistle workshop this Saturday in Brooklyn!

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 4: glass feedback

ranjit — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 03:59:26 +0000

A piezo microphone and a piezo speaker hooked up to a little amplifier
to create feedback through a sheet of glass.

CAUTION: LOUD AND UNPLEASANT NOISE!

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 3: drumstick whistles

ranjit — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 02:23:38 +0000

I believe in multiple-use instruments, so I turned the drumsticks from my Rock Band video game into whistles.

Materials: drumsticks, wooden dowels, wood glue.

Plus a bonus sound for today–crunching through snow with a crispy crust of ice:

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 2: refrigophone

ranjit — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 05:34:45 +0000

For all four years of the instrument-a-day project, my noisy
refrigerator has plagued me: I have to unplug it whenever I record a
new instrument at home. Well, today I exploited it.

Materials: refrigerator noise, filtered by resonant tin cans.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

instrument-a-day 1: lumpy guitar

ranjit — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 06:03:15 +0000

To warm up for this year's month of making an instrument a day, and to advertise the junk guitar workshop this saturday: an especially primitive junk guitar.

Found wood, guitar strings, zither pins, scrap acrylic bridges, and a weird overhead pickup made of crudely-wound wire and a magnet out of a dead hard drive.

Posted via email from moonmilk’s posterous

artistic mediums ii, opening tomorrow in newton, ma

ranjit — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:40:21 +0000

If you’re in the Boston area, you might like this show about art, technology, and spiritualism. My microradio sound art piece “Songs from the Portuguese” is in it. The opening reception is Friday, Jan 28.

Artistic Mediums II

junk electric guitar workshop – sat feb 5

ranjit — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:23:59 +0000

It’s almost time for instrument-a-day month again, and I’m celebrating by doing a bunch of instrument-making workshops at NYC Resistor in Brooklyn. First up on Saturday February 5 (1-4pm) is Junk Electric Guitars: make a primitive–but loud!–electric guitar. Here’s video from a previous workshop:

Sign up here.

Coming up later in February:
Laser Whistles – Saturday, February 12, from 1-4 PM
Learn how to use the laser cutter by making wooden whistles, recorders, or ocarinas.
Fun with Sensors – Saturday, February 19, from 1-3 PM
Assemble vibration, light, and magnetic sensors and use them to pick up hidden sounds from the environment and to hear objects and musical instruments in a new way.
Handmade Electronic Noise – Saturday, February 26, from 1-4 PM
Make simple synthesizers and sequencers from dirt-cheap integrated circuits.

the produce scan project continues

ranjit — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 16:04:02 +0000

Windsor Terrace Greenmarket Produce Scan of the Week, originally uploaded by ranjit.

I’m still scanning my greenmarket veggies every week. See them all (four hundred and eighty one so far) in the flickr set.

ebassoon demo

ranjit — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 15:43:47 +0000

ebassoon demo, originally uploaded by ranjit.

Playing around with the ebassoon, which uses a simple network of dividers to derive a just-intonation scale from a single master tone.

my favorite 3 seconds…

ranjit — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:03:42 +0000

…from John Cage’s Aria, performed by Paul Hillier & Theatre of Voices:
Download audio file (snippet-from-cage-aria.mp3)
[download]
(Paul Hillier & Theatre of Voices)

Misericordiam at the DUMBO Arts Festival

ranjit — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 04:27:08 +0000

Misericordiam at the DUMBO Arts Festival, originally uploaded by ranjit.

The lobby at 55 Washington was a perfect setting for the accordion robot, with its brushed steel walls and blue neon.

city birds at myrtle festival, sunday sept 18

ranjit — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 23:51:18 +0000

City Birds, originally uploaded by ranjit.

Meet the birds at the Move About Myrtle festival on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn- tomorrow, September 19th!

They’ll also be at the NYC Resistor table at the World Maker Faire in Queens the next weekend (Sept 25-26).

The Case of the Curious Pedestrian at the Move About Myrtle Festival

that’s all!

ranjit — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:01:12 +0000

Just the little “that’s all!” from the ends of a bunch of Annette Hanshaw tunes.
Download audio file (hanshaw-thats-all.mp3)
download link

upcoming stuff

ranjit — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:19:40 +0000

Some upcoming events that I’m involved with:

July 29-31 (Thursday-Saturday) Odd Act presents Peter Pan at the Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, Princeton, NJ: They’ve borrowed a bunch of my homemade instruments for this musical adaptation of Peter Pan. I’ll be there for the Thursday night show!
September 19 (Sunday noon-6pm) Move About Myrtle Festival along Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, between Clermont Ave & Hall St.: The Case of the Curious Pedestrian is a one-day exhibition of performance art and ephemeral installations as part of the Myrtle neighborhood festival. I’ll be hiding a bunch of little mechanical music machines along (above) the avenue- can you find them all?
August 2010-June 2011 Wind through the Trees – an outdoor sculpture exhibition of sound & motion at Jenkins Arboretum, Devon, PA: I’ve got two pieces in this show of environmental and kinetic sculpture – good old Trumpet Marine and a new one, Spiracles, that’ll twist its way all the way up into the treetops. The opening party will be the evening of Saturday October 2.
September 23-26 Festival of Music for People and Thingamajigs, Oakland, CA.: This year I’m helping to curate this festival of handmade instruments and alternate tunings, but I’ll probably have some sort of noisemaker in there too!
January 20-30, 2011 Pulse Art and Technology Festival, Telfair Museum of Art,, Savannah, GA: I’ll be conducting some instrument-building workshops, and possibly performing. Don’t know the exact dates yet.
January 24-February 25, 2011 Artistic Mediums at the New Art Center, Newton, MA.: My sound and micro-radio installation Songs from the Portugese will be part of this exhibit about mysterious phenomena and things that go bump in the night

…and maybe some other stuff.

video: making an accordion automaton, in a hurry

ranjit — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:02:09 +0000

Motherboard tv was kind enough to ask me to make a music machine for them. Here’s their video of the process!

vexbot survived!

ranjit — Thu, 20 May 2010 02:21:33 +0000

My little toy piano robot survived about 20 straight hours of playing “Vexations” (see previous coverage). Though I did find a few retaining nuts in the bottom of the case that had been shaken loose by all the vexing. You can see & hear an excerpt from the performance on ustream.

I spent a few hours listening to the audio streams from both the robot performance and the human Vexations marathon in Seattle. It was kind of eerie and kind of comforting. What was it like? Like this: [19 minute mp3]
Download audio file (jack%20straw%20and%20vexbot%20-%20vexations%20excerpt.mp3)

The human and robot performances were mentioned in Seattle’s weekly, The Stranger, here and here.

five years of samson

ranjit — Sat, 15 May 2010 03:10:15 +0000

I adopted my dog 5 years ago today.

Bonus blingee from Lia!

vexations this weekend!

ranjit — Wed, 12 May 2010 18:51:14 +0000

“In order to play the theme 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.”

In the 1890s, Erik Satie wrote a very short piece called Vexations, with a note suggesting that it should be played 840 times in a row. That’s a challenge, right? Jack Straw Productions in Seattle is putting on a Vexations marathon this weekend, starting Saturday at 4pm Pacific time, with more than 30 pianists playing non-stop through the night until they reach #840, and you can listen in on Hollow Earth Radio. It’s a great idea, but we have machines to do our dirty work for us, so the robot toy piano is going to play Vexations at NYC Resistor 840 times, or until it falls apart. It’ll start at 7PM (Eastern time) this Saturday, and you can watch and listen online, or in person on Saturday at the Halfway-to-Halloween Party, or on Sunday at the Vexations Meetup & Jam Session.

Yes, on Sunday (May 16) from 3-6PM, join other music nerds to jam along to Vexations until your head explodes, or we reach #840, whichever comes first. Bring instruments if you want. (Bring your own 1/4″ cables, if your instrument is electronic. Inputs are limited so if you can bring a small mixer to share, that would help!) Feel free to bring vexing drinks or snacks to share. NYC Resistor is at 87 3rd Avenue, 4th Floor, in Brooklyn.

As long as you’re in the neighborhood on Sunday, consider going to Share at ISSUE Project Room (3rd Av & 3rd St), a weekly open jam session for experimental music! When we get sick of Vexations, we’ll take a dinner break and head over there.

wall cello!

ranjit — Mon, 10 May 2010 19:27:20 +0000

I made this contraption for the Scrapcycle exhibition.

noisy noises go to williamsburg

ranjit — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 03:19:59 +0000

A bunch of my handmade instruments from the Noisy Noises project are going to be exhibited as part of the Scrapcycle show at Devotion Gallery through the end of May. The show opens on Friday May 7th, and the Glass Bees and I will be performing at the opening around 8pm! Bring a used plastic water bottle to barter for admission.